On Independence Day, in 1845, a Black farmer named John Tucker was walking along Washington Street when he was struck by stones and bricks hurled by three drunk white men.
Hundreds of people watched, including the mayor, as Tucker, a father of two, was beaten to death by Nicholas Wood, William Ballenger and Edward Davis in the middle of the afternoon. Others encouraged the violence, shouting racial slurs.
Two of the men were arrested for Tucker’s murder, but only one was convicted. Another escaped to avoid being prosecuted.
In 2023, an Indiana historical marker was installed at Illinois and Washington Streets, where Tucker was killed — both a reminder of his life and a physical stake in the ground to document the crime that happened there.
It’s one of five historical markers that Leon Bates, a historian and member of the Indiana Remembrance Coalition, has helped to research about unknown Black Hoosiers. He started this quest over a decade ago, after becoming upset with a former deputy mayor who he said claimed Madam C.J. Walker was the only Black person worthy of a statue or monument.
Historical markers are one way Hoosiers can get a bite-sized portion of Indiana history. There are over 750 across 92 state counties, including more than 100 in Marion County.
Read some historical markers from around Indianapolis. Credit: Mirror Indy staff
But, due to state and federal budget cuts, including 16 layoffs at the Indiana State Library, some local historians say residents could see fewer of these markers around the city and state. And that means important stories will go untold, Bates said.
“The damage is going to be a lot more costly. What I mean by that is people don’t know these historical narratives,” Bates said. “So without those markers, stories like (John Tucker) would not get told. And maybe that’s their point, is that they don’t want these stories being told.”
Historical markers helps us not forget the extraordinary or uncomfortable
The historical markers — blue, almost black signs with shimmering, gold letters — stand next to trees, buildings and statues all over the state. They’re virtually in every busy neighborhood, draped in the state’s colors.
The markers are produced by hand with a 100-year-old process at a factory in Ohio, according to Indiana Capitol Chronicle.
In less than 200 words, they provide historical facts that are mundane, extraordinary or uncomfortable.
On Monument Circle, a marker tells you the story of Indy’s first large Pride event in 1990. In 2024, jazz artist Wes Montgomery was honored with a marker at 10th and Bellafontaine streets, not far from where he, his wife and their children lived.
Outside of IU Indianapolis’ medical library, a marker honors physician Amelia Keller, who co-founded the Woman’s Franchise League of Indiana.
The Indiana Historical Bureau, a division of the state library, has managed the program since 1946. In June, five of the six employees at the bureau were laid off.
The layoffs were preemptive as the state agency prepared to lose $1.1 million under Gov. Mike Braun’s two-year state budget that went into effect on July 1.
The cuts happened days before President Trump signed a new federal budget into law, which would effectively dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an independent federal agency that has provided over $3 million annually to the Indiana State Library since 2020. That funding has been suspended.
Mirror Indy reached out to the state library for comment and asked about the future of its programs. In a statement, Director Jake Speer wrote:
“As you may know, to account for an over $2 billion budget shortfall, many agencies across state government saw budget reductions. This included the Indiana State Library, and ultimately, staffing levels were adjusted to ensure we could live within a much tighter budget.”
“The Indiana Memory and Hoosier State Chronicles programs have been realigned with other staff members at the Indiana State Library and will continue.”
Is the preservation of Hoosier history at risk?
Kelsey Green was laid off in June, a month before she could celebrate two years at the Indiana Historical Bureau.
She worked as the public outreach coordinator, where she wrote and produced content for multiple social media platforms. You can see her contributions to the division’s “Untold Indiana” blog and “Talking Hoosier History” podcast. She also helped to manage the bureau’s intern and volunteer program.
Green did research for the historical marker program as well. She said she helped to get three to four markers erected a year, including one in Indianapolis for Ada B. Harris, an educator who led a Black women’s club movement in Norwood, a historic neighborhood on the southeast side.
She said she and the rest of the staff poured their hearts and souls into their work every day.
“We had intentionally taken less money or not worked at a university or not worked for a private company, to be at the historical bureau and be state public servants to do this marker program,” Green said.
After seeing the state budget proposal for the state library in January, Green and her colleagues were anxious during the 2025 legislative session about what it would mean for their careers.
She said upper management did not communicate to staff how the cuts would affect their jobs. Then, in a 10-minute meeting with the State Personnel Department in mid-June, Green was let go.
“It was really devastating in both how abrupt it was, the lack of communication, like the lack of ability to find other positions, or have an ability to make plans.”
However, Green is less worried about her position and more about how the historical bureau could disappear altogether. Only one staff member remains, Casey Pfeiffer, who leads the historical marker program, which receives about 30 applications a year.
The program has also seen an increase in applications that focus on underrepresented racial, ethnic or immigrant groups and women’s history.
“I just don’t see how anybody could facilitate that program at the level we were doing it,” Green said, “I think (the community) loses access to trained historians and experts in Indiana who are able to dive in and work with their community to tell their stories. I’m especially concerned for minority or disenfranchised communities.”
When asked about running the program on her own, Pfeiffer directed questions to Speer.
‘It’s an attack on education and liberal arts’
Historians and organizations say the reduction to staff at the Indiana Historical Bureau has interfered with their ability to complete projects.
Eunice Trotter, director of the Black Heritage Preservation Program at Indiana Landmarks, said her oral history project is in limbo. She was working to set up a Black oral history collection through one of the bureau’s programs, Indiana Memory.
The project, made possible by grants from the IMLS, is a digital library that provides free online access to digitized books, manuscripts, photographs, newspapers and maps.
Indiana Memory is also an important resource to the Indiana Album, said founding director Joan Hostetler.
The nonprofit promotes the preservation of Hoosier family stories by teaching individuals and groups such as Kiwanis Club how to scan and preserve historic photographs. Hostetler said she was working to digitize a newspaper collection in Whitley and Kosciusko counties, a community with less than 5,000 people, when the lone staff member — who led all digital initiatives — was laid off.
She is now waiting on a response from the state library on how to move forward.
“We’ve been told that Indiana Memory and Hoosier State Chronicles will not be cut, but logically, if there’s not enough staff to manage them, I think they will probably be diminished somewhat,” Hostetler told Mirror Indy.
Due to the layoffs, digital program responsibilities have been transferred to other employees in the state library, according to Speer, the director.
Hostetler said she is concerned about what budget cuts mean for the future of the historic preservation field where she has worked since the 1980s.
“I just worry that we are eliminating our accurate history sources, it just feels like it’s an attack on education and the liberal arts,” Hostetler said. “It’s a very upsetting time for those with us who care about education and the liberal arts.”
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Mirror Indy reporter Mesgana Waiss covers arts and culture. Contact her at 317-667-2643 or mesgana.waiss@mirrorindy.org.
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